My Duluth: AUGUST 2006 (LIVEJOURNAL)

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74321
2006-08-01 21:37:00
2006-08-02 02:46:00
I can't believe it's August

As much as people complained about how hot it was here last month, we had a REAL summer - and I loved every second of it. Shorts only - no pants for a whole month, no long sleeved shirts, bright sun, good moods, good tans, How often does Duluth get weather like this? Not very! I'll take every moment of it that we have left. Because as excited as I was for summer to begin three months ago, I realize that three months from now will be November, and that's what sucks about August - it's officially the beginning of the end if you like warm weather. Not that I don't like fall, or winter even...it's just the length of the wait between November and May that seems to take so long. Especially that time right after New Year's Day when everything settles down and gets back to normal. Who knows what kind of winter we are going to have this time around. If we are lucky, we will have one like the past year, which was barely memorable - I don't think we really had any big storms to speak of. This summer, we've had little rain, except for the past two days it seems to have all come at once. Today has been a drag because it's been one of those typical early August cloudy, is it gonna rain or isn't it days. Which reminds me of fall, which reminds me of the beginning of the school year, which is coming up in less than a month. The time goes by way too fast. And I have to admit I've had a good time this summer. I've gotten a chance to get out and do the things I want, no, of course I haven't met anyone but at the same time, I think to myself, I have my own schedule that I can go shoot pictures or work out or play basketball and do whatever I want. I don't have to answer to anyone, nor do I have to check in or deal with someone else's moods.
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74538
2006-08-03 20:51:00
2006-08-04 02:19:53
8/2/66-8/2/06 = my 40 year old sister.
My sister Missy turned 40 yesterday. I haven't talked much about her becuase my family's relationship with her over the past ten years or so has been very rocky. She has entered a series of very bad relationships, three of which she had children from. None of these guys have been in her life for more than two years or so. I think that my parents got so frustrated with her inability to learn from some of her choices, combined with how quickly she would enter a new relationship - this time with kids - that they stopped trying to talk to her and just let her do whatever she wanted, because she's going to do what she wants anyways. The problem is that, at 40, she hasn't seemed to learn from these choices. Their discussions always have ended in a fight, a phone slamming down, voices getting higher, my parents arguing afterwards about where they went wrong with her; Missy is a subject that I do not bring up around my parents. She lives outside of Chicago now, which is over 400 miles away, so we rarely discuss her. WHenever the discussion moves in the direction of Missy, it is almost always a bad one and I try to steer away from it. I remember being about 6 ot 7 (my sisters are 7 and 8 years older than me) and my sisters were teenagers. Both Missy and Steph were great at certain things, but Missy excelled at almost everything she tried at. She always made the honor roll. She was pretty and got all the attention a girl could ever want. She always had boyfriends. She was popular at school. Whatever she put her energy towards, she always did well at. Steph, on the other hand, had to really work hard to do well at things, and Missy knew it. There were times that Missy would see that Steph was trying to do well at something (drawing was one of them), and Missy took up drawing just to upstage Steph. That's how competitive Missy was. It drove Steph crazy. When Missy was going to East High School, she was a great sport - she lettered in volleyball, basketball and softball. We went to all the games, she was on the first East teams to go to the state high school tournaments...she was the first generation of female athletes at East who were smart, pretty, competitive, and could still beat the boys at basketball. Growing up, I idolized Missy like you wouldn't believe. She was so good at everything she did, I wanted to be around her and I thought her friends were so cool also. Those were good times for me. I didn't realize the heighr or pain of competition that affected my other sister, or even my mom, when it came to Missy. But as I sit here as an adult, I know that those were very hard years. Missy and Steph rarely got along. Both of them would try to pit my mom against my dad, and many times that was the start of some pretty loud arguments in this house. Then after they moved out, I got to listen to my parents argue about why they didn't stick up for each other when the girls were pulling this stuff - thanks a lot Missy and Steph! I'm not even sure what Missy's number is now. It's been so long since I've really talked to her because she has three kids now, and I think she met a new guy about six months ago who she now lives with. I choose not to get involved in that right now. I feel bad for saying nothing and doing nothing, but I have tried in the past and the insanity of dealing with it is too much for me. She's got to find her own way out of this. Right now I remember her as the big sister I used to really admire. I will always love her. Happy birthday, Mis. Here's some of my favorite pictures of Missy over the years...

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74831
2006-08-04 23:36:00
2006-08-05 04:36:25
For all of my photos...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/duluthmn
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75167
2006-08-15 20:57:00
2006-08-16 01:57:58

CITY OF DULUTH POLICE DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASE 411 W. 1st Street Duluth, MN 55803 218-730-5400 This is an official City of Duluth Police Department press release. Copies of all press releases can be accessed through our web site at: www.ci.duluth.mn.us/city/pressreleases/index.htm Todayís Date: 8/14/06 Location: 2001 W. Superior Street Incident: Robbery of the Seaway Hotel Incident Date: 8/14/06 Incident Time: 1917 hrs. Case Number: 06-297649 Author: Lt. Kerry Kolodge Details On 8-14-06 at approximately 1917 hrs., Duluth Police responded to the Seaway Hotel at 2001 W. Superior Street, in reference to a robbery. Initial information was that an unknown male entered the Hotel wearing a ski mask, went behind the counter, grabbed the female clerk and demanded money. The clerk complied with the robberís demand and was unhurt. The suspect fled the scene with an undisclosed amount of cash. He was last seen running west in the alley behind the Seaway Hotel, in the area of Curlyís Bar. No weapon was seen and none was mentioned. The suspect was described as a slender black male, 5'5" to 5'9", wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and unknown colored pants or shorts. Anyone with information on this robbery is asked to contact the Duluth Police Department Violent Crimes Unit at 218-730-5050.
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75356
2006-08-19 18:09:00
2006-08-19 23:13:31
Something to think about
My original letter to Lavender Magazine, which I can't find right now, had to do with the overemphasis on convincing society to accept gay marriage but I don't even see gay people convinced that this can work. This is one of the responses that was in this week's magazine, it was interesting: Letter to the editor in Lavender Magazine (8-18-06) Singled Out Thank you, Jonathan Lund and Managing Editor E.B. Boatner, for bringing up the issue of how many gay men struggle to find an appropriate life partner year after year with no success [“Letters to the Editor” and “A Word in Edgewise,” Lavender, July 21]. Several years ago, a study in The Advocate stated that about 60 percent of adult gay men would not experience a long-term relationship in their lifetime. Realizing I am a part of this 60 percent was a revelation that sent me on a personal quest to find out why. The core problem, as I see it, is one of gender behavior. We may be gay, but we are male first. To make a statement that part of the problem is two men trying to forge a union is seen by the current gay culture as a homophobic statement, but if you look at the way we are raised as boys, we are conditioned to compete with other boys, our friends, our brothers, and even our fathers. We don’t really trust one another, because we are always assuming that other guys want to get one up on us, and we’re angry when another man becomes more successful than we are. Also, we are very uncomfortable with the idea of giving up our personal power to another man. To approach a man and tell him we need and want him is to render oneself completely at his mercy. Most gay men find this so degrading that they would rather go home alone with their dignity intact than risk humiliation, especially in front of other men. When we do manage to couple, this male power struggle within the relationship often begins to tear at the fabric of what was forged in the process of falling in love. We as a movement have become so concerned with not giving our opposition any ammunition that we disallow the self-criticism crucial for the GLBT liberation movement to evolve to a more mature stage. We have come such a long way in such a short time. But we need to come together and ask: Where are we now? What are the problems? How can we find a way to reach out to each other? Where are our leaders? We are all in this together. Let’s be kinder to one another, and not just on Gay Pride. Andre S. Gambino
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75653
2006-08-19 20:21:00
2006-08-20 01:21:15
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